


After the Crisis

by VTsuion



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Amnesia, Developing Relationship, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Getting to Know Each Other, Light Angst, M/M, Reality Bending, Rescue, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29592357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VTsuion/pseuds/VTsuion
Summary: Bruce Wayne wakes up in a crystalline cavern. Clark Kent wakes up in a dark cave. And they learn a little bit about each other, what they once were, and, perhaps, what they could be.
Relationships: Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	1. Chapter 1

It was like trying to run in an earthquake, the ground shifting beneath his feet. Sometimes the tremors subsided for a while and he could hit a stride before everything shifted again, but even when all was quiet, he could still feel the fractures from the last quake. And he still sometimes dreamed in four colors, of a strange, cheerful world where nothing quite felt real.

He woke up on his back, lying against something hard and flat - probably a floor. It wasn’t the least comfortable surface he’d slept on in recent memory. He struggled to move and his muscles ached in protest, but it appeared he wasn’t restrained - a foolish mistake on someone’s part. He opened his eyes and peered through his mask. In the dark, he could make out the shadowy shapes of a high, roughly hewn ceiling.

Reflexively, he raised a hand to his head - sure enough, to his surprise the cowl was still there. Most criminals in Gotham would have given anything to tear the mask off his head, and more to take his head with it. Maybe someone was selling that honor to the highest bidder, or it could have been one of the Riddler’s games, or some sort of trap that was just the beginning of a larger torment, or the work of an alien with goals beyond his comprehension; a dozen or so possibilities ran through his mind in an instant.

He had some faint recollection of what had preceded the current state of events. There had been a fight, of course; Solomon Grundy - not the type to take prisoners - rampaging through Gotham, damaging already dilapidated buildings that were the best their residents could afford. Batman had done what he could, but he’d gotten distracted - he distantly remembered a panicked civilian, and then a painful nothing. Someone must have taken advantage of the opportunity.

But they hadn’t done a very good job of it, discounting any alien technology. He still had his mask and his utility belt, still fully stocked as far as he could tell. Unfortunately, most of the electronics were on the fritz, which was a point in favor of some alien influence.

He pushed himself upright with a grunt and waited as the blood rushed down from his head. At least everything only hurt like bruises, not broken bones.

As it turned out, he was not on the floor, but sitting on a raised platform, like a surgical table, in the center of a tall, narrow room. It wasn’t cold, but every surface looked slick and smooth, like ice, and the cavernous ceiling wouldn’t have been out of place in a glacier. Mr. Freeze moved from the low middle to the top of the list, though he wasn’t the only one with climate control technology good enough to make the room livable without melting the ice. Alternatively, it could have all been some sort of alien ice-like crystal. There was no obvious surveillance equipment, but that was no surprise in any case.

He slid from the table onto the ground. His legs reluctantly held him, aching in protest, but it was enough for the time being. His boots kept their traction on the floor more easily than expected - it seemed the gloss was just for show.

The small crystalline chamber had only one apparent doorway; a tall triangle of what looked like thinner, nearly translucent ice. If it really was a thin pane of ice, all it would take was a few sprays of the right chemical mixture to melt it, and he stepped toward the doorway, a canister raised, ready to try, when the door slid open of its own accord.

It seemed he was in a larger cage than he first thought. Beyond was a cavernous corridor that could have been the inside of a glacier, with high icy walls apparently supported by crystalline columns jutting out from the ground in what he suspected was an intricate pattern, whether natural or intentional, too complicated to decipher with only a glance.

He had found himself in stranger predicaments, but, looking in on the corridor he had a distinct feeling that something was terribly  _ wrong _ that had nothing to do with how he had come to be there. It was like a dream - maybe that was what it was, that he had seen this place in a dream before. It was all so familiar, he could have sworn he had been there a thousand times, if only he could remember it properly, and yet it was all wrong, as though it was an imperfect replica, with everything shifted just out of place.

He knew the feeling well; it was the feeling of stepping on a fissure in reality. Once this place, whatever it was, had been familiar to him, he almost wanted to say welcoming. But it had changed and so had he. Now it was strange and therefore dangerous.

The hall was like one of the Riddler’s puzzles - if he had teamed up with Mr. Freeze - a dozen giant triangular doors to choose from, and only one way out, and if a mind like the Riddler’s was behind it, none of them really concealed the exit. Interspersed between the doorways was what seemed more likely to be the key to the puzzle; large mechanical structures, unlike anything he had ever seen before, but still somehow strangely familiar, as though he knew what they did if only he could remember it. They were, at least, another point in favor of aliens.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the triangular doors begin to move.

He pulled back to conceal himself behind the wall - as much as he could conceal himself, dressed in black in a white cavern - and peered out through the doorway, a batarang ready in hand. A small, loosely humanoid robot, composed of some golden material, hovered out into the hall. He only got a brief glimpse of more unusual machinery and ice-like crystals in the chamber from which it had come before the doorway slid closed behind it. He had seen that robot before, he could have sworn it, but like everything else, something was wrong, as though its limbs were all just slightly out of place.

The door to his little cell was still open, but the robot made no obvious indication that it was aware that anything was out of place. Instead, it drifted steadily across the cavernous hall, toward the largest triangular doorway, set into the far wall, framed by a pair of crystalline columns propped up against each other. If any of the doors led to an exit, he had a feeling that would be it - unless that was the point and it was just a trap. In any case, he would learn more about this place following an unwitting guide than randomly checking doors to see what was behind them.

He slipped out into the hall, carefully ducking out of the robot’s presumed line of sight. However, as he crossed the threshold, out of his cell, the ambient temperature dropped fifty degrees in an instant. Maybe it was all ice after all. The sudden chill, burning against what little bare skin he had and stinging in his nose, could only be intentional - maybe the security was so lackluster because his captors were under the impression that nothing could survive below thirty degrees. But bitter cold would stop him no more than the persistent ache.

He kept close to the wall, darting behind columns and around the strange machinery - he tried to glean what he could from it as he passed, but he had a feeling its mysteries would take years to uncover, and the robot he was following glided across the hall without pause. He barely slid through the doorway before it closed after it.

On the other side was an even larger cavern, not as long, but higher than the first, with several more large, triangular doorways coming off of it. But whoever had built this place may as well have made a flashing sign pointing toward the exit; one wall was taken up by a pair of gigantic humanoid statues - if only he could remember who they were - holding up a globe between them, below which was a round portal, bigger than any of the triangular doors. Whether it was really the exit remained to be seen, but it was a good first guess.

The rest of the room was more sparsely decorated than the corridor from which he had come. There were a few more of the large, seemingly mechanical structures, but most of the walls were taken up by towering crystalline columns. However, opposite the statues, hanging on the wall in what looked like a place of honor, was a very human device. It was comically large, too big to fit in any door, but it was shaped exactly like a silver key. And written across it in giant letters was, “Metropolis.”

_ Of course _ .

The alien technology, the apparent lack of security, even the inconsistent climate control all fell into place. With x-ray vision, the mask made little difference - sometimes he suspected Superman could even see through lead - though the blue boyscout swore on his honor that he would never peek.

And no wonder this was like something from a dream. Everything about Superman was familiar in ways he could barely begin to decipher. He had some distinct feeling that if he closed his eyes, he could find his way around just by memory. But if he tried it, he would probably run straight into a wall; nothing was where he expected it to be, and why would it be? He had never really been there in all the years they’d worked together, just seen it in distant dreams he couldn’t quite recall.

Even if he was pretty sure he knew where he was, he still remained hidden - better safe than dead. He followed the robot out of the central hall, through yet another triangular doorway into another corridor, not so different from the first. But he didn’t have long to take in his surroundings as the robot quickly turned through the first doorway on the right, into a smaller cavern full of more unusual machines. And working on them, his hands moving at superhuman speed and his feet hovering an inch above the ground, was the man of steel himself.

Bruce wasn’t used to being humored. He was acutely aware that the man inside could hear his every heartbeat, every breath that he took; it wouldn’t have been a surprise to find out that even his thoughts weren’t his own. But Superman made no move to acknowledge him as he slid into the room, instinctively staying out of Superman’s concentrated line of sight.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” Bruce said at last in the same low, rough voice he used on the streets of Gotham.

Only then did Superman stop what he was doing and turn around, much slower than he could have, though his feet never touched the ground. He always looked like he was restraining himself; going fast, but not too fast, strong, but always kept under control. It was necessary - he had seen what Superman could really do, only once or twice, but that was enough - and Batman wasn’t the only one with an image to maintain.

“Batman.” Superman inclined his head in cordial acknowledgement. “It’s good to see you up and about.”

There was nothing, no glint of recognition, only distant concern, as Superman would express for anyone, even Lex Luthor. And why should there be? They’d worked together on and off over the years, but that was all. It was only in hazy, surreal dreams that vanished as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes that they were anything more - and he didn’t even know what they had been; closer than any friends Bruce had ever had, but somehow it all felt impossibly lighter than air. Still, part of him missed that easy camaraderie that had never really been his at all. 

But if Superman wanted it to be all business, then who was  _ Batman _ to complain. “You got Grundy?”

“Yes. Once I was sure that you and the remaining civilians were out of the way, I dealt with him, and you can rest assured that he won’t be coming back to Gotham for a long while. I was able to repair some of the damage that he did, but” - Superman’s tone turned a little sheepish; a glimpse of the person Bruce knew was there behind the mask - “I don’t think those buildings were in good shape even before Grundy came though.”

He gave a withering glare - Superman knew where the line was drawn. As much as he wanted to trust Superman because of some half-remembered dream, he didn’t, and Gotham was his turf.

“The damage was my fault, I just cleaned up after myself and left.”

Superman just always had to be the bigger man, so high above it all that sometimes Bruce wondered if he felt anything at all - but he knew Superman really cared more than anyone. But just once, he would have liked to get a reaction out of the man of steel. But there was only so much he could complain when Superman had done more to help the people whose lives had been caught in the crossfire in a minute than the Wayne Foundation could in a month.

So, he settled for more immediate problems; “And took me with you.”

“Well, yes” - again that almost human uncertainty. “I didn’t know anywhere else I could bring you. Your bones should all be healed now, at least, thanks to a Kryptonian regenerator.”

He inclined his head in acknowledgement.

“And I wanted to exchange notes about Grundy,” Superman continued. “He’s not just Gotham’s problem.”

He cut Superman off, “This looks like it was a Gotham job.”

“Well, if it leaves Gotham, I want to know about it.”

“If you let me out of here.” Bruce pointedly held up his jammed Batplane key.

“Of course” - for just a moment Superman seemed to flounder, but he quickly recovered - “sorry about that; the Kryptonian technology interferes with transmissions, otherwise the Fortress would be flooded with visitors.” He pressed a button on the panel in front of him. “It should work now, but” - he hesitated - “you’re welcome to stay in the Fortress of Solitude for as long as you want. You’d think I would have showed you around ages ago, but I guess it never happened. Anyway, what’s mine is yours.”

Superman almost looked hopeful, like he wanted him to stay after all, like maybe he also had some faint memory of a time, another reality, where they were more than just contentious allies.

But that wasn’t their reality. “I think I’ll stick to Gotham. It’s usually above freezing.”

“Oh!” Again, Superman was caught off guard. “I’m usually in the Fortress alone, so I forget how cold it is.” He pressed another button. “That should make it more livable while you’re here.”

Sure enough, the ambient temperature rose fifty degrees, and he would be lying if he said it didn’t make a difference.

In a very low voice - though he knew Superman could hear him loud and clear - Bruce said, “Thank you,” and then in an instant and a puff of smoke - not that he could fool Superman - he vanished.


	2. Chapter 2

Clark woke up feeling like he’d been bowled over by an atom bomb or pummeled by Bizzaro, but it was the sensation that his usually impermeable stomach had gone inside out that told him that Kryptonite was to blame, and he could only imagine that Lex Luthor was responsible, though his memory of the whole thing was still a little hazy.

Movement was painful, but he could still see with his x-ray vision; even with his eyes closed, he could make out a subterranean hide-out, all rough rock and dark caverns - not at all Luthor’s style - and beyond it a mansion on a point overlooking the bay, just outside Gotham City. His head pounded as he tried to focus. But as his eyes blinked back into his own head, it clicked and his subterranean view lined up with the familiar map of the city. There was only one place he could be; underneath Wayne Manor, the mansion of Gotham billionaire, Bruce Wayne. He didn’t think Wayne had any connections to Lex Corp, but apparently he was wrong. Maybe Batman knew something. He hoped Batman knew something.

Clark heard movement several yards away; fingers tapping at a keyboard, a chair creaking as someone shifted their weight, the steady breathing and heart rate of a person at rest - presumably a guard. He fought an aching head to peer into the dark cavern. He was lying flat on a metal table in what looked like a very high tech lab - that, at least, was like Luthor. But he wasn’t restrained, his limbs were just heavy, as though his own weight was pushing back against him, leaden with Kryptonite.

With a significant effort, he shoved himself upright, as ready as he could be for a fight. But nothing happened. There was no invisible barrier, no robots sprung to life with lasers aimed at his chest. He pushed himself up off the table and onto his feet. But still nothing. The machinery around him remained dormant, nothing came rushing at him from the dark caverns beyond. With his superhuman vision he could make out clear shapes in the pitch blackness; mostly rough walls and even more machinery, apparently for analysis rather than restraint, though he couldn’t be sure.

Clark wasn’t sure he was up for flying yet, so he shuffled out of the lab, deeper into the caverns. His footsteps echoed against the hard walls. There was something somehow familiar about the deep, dark caverns, he almost wanted to call it homey in an admittedly depressing sort of way. It felt more lived-in than Superman’s own pristine Fortress of Solitude. 

He passed between a pair of gargoyles built into the rocks - another reminder that this was Gotham, not Metropolis. He braced himself for the blow, hoping he was still invulnerable, even weighed down by Kryptonite, but no lasers came shooting out of their mouths.

He tried to look through the cavern walls ahead of him, searching for some clue as to the purpose of this underground laboratory, what connection it might possibly have to Luthor. Just before his pounding head forced him to refocus, he glimpsed the room beyond, filled with rows of bat-themed vehicles, built for all sorts of terrain.

_ Oh. _

He tried again to focus with his x-ray vision, staring down through the rock. Again, his head began to pound, but managed to focus for long enough to spot a man sitting at a giant console, a black cape hanging from his shoulders and a cowl covering his head.

That changed everything.

It was a surprise in more ways than one; that he wasn’t imprisoned there, of course, but also that Batman had rescued him from Luthor’s goons, had brought him here - to his home. And then there was the fact that apparently Batman was Bruce Wayne. It was hard to believe; he almost wondered if Wayne was merely a sponsor and had just set up this cave for Batman, but he knew Batman wasn’t one to trust anyone else with something like that. And somehow it felt right, like somehow Clark had known all along. And then, even more surprising than all the rest was the fact that apparently Batman trusted him with all of this - it didn’t feel quite right thinking of him as Bruce, not yet. Clark felt a pang of guilt that he had discovered Batman’s secret identity while Batman was still none the wiser about his own.

He had wanted to trust Batman; they had been friends once, if the faint memories from realities past were to be believed, and sometimes he wondered if they had even been more than friends - it was hard to tell. But if Batman remembered, he didn’t show it. Clark wasn’t really sure what to make of the surly dark knight; he wasn’t exactly Clark’s kind of hero, and often it seemed like Batman was just tolerating him. So Clark did his best to stay out of the way. But he regretted it; he missed how close they had once been, or could have been. And now it seemed like maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

Finally, Clark found his meandering way to an elevator that took him down to the giant computer terminal where Batman was still working, to all appearances unaware that his guest was up and about - not that Batman was ever really caught unaware.

“B-” Clark began, but he faltered over which name to use.

Batman turned in his chair to face him, his usual scowl replaced by a slight smirk, vaguely reminiscent of Bruce Wayne, but there was no doubt that this was the Batman that Clark knew.

Clark took a breath and steeled himself - he was still Superman, after all. He squared his shoulders and looked Batman firmly in the eye. Steadily, but apologetically, he said, “I know that you’re Bruce Wayne; I didn’t know where I was, so I used my x-ray vision. I’m sorry, if I had known I would have respected your secret identity, but since I found out, it’s only fair that you know that I’m-”

At that, Batman cut him off, “Clark Kent, reporter for the Daily Planet.”

Clark sputtered like an old car. “How long have you known?”

Instead of answering Batman said, “I wouldn’t bring someone into the Batcave without knowing their identity.”

“Of course. Especially not someone with x-ray vision,” Clark added, sheepishly.

Batman responded with a pointed look - for all of his scowls and grimances, he could communicate volumes without saying anything at all.

“Thank you for bringing me here - for rescuing me,” Clark said. “I don’t know what would have happened to me otherwise.”

“I was just returning the favor.” Batman turned back to the computer terminal, where he had been studying a file on Lex Luthor.

“Well, thank you.”

Clark may have seen something that almost resembled a smile reflected on the computer screen.

Clark lingered behind him, reading a sentence or two over Batman’s shoulder. Still a little woozy, Clark braced himself with one hand on the back of Batman’s chair. Batman made no comment.

“Have you figured out what he’s up to?” Clark asked after a little while.

He saw Batman glaring at him through his reflection on the screen. “You’re not in any state to do anything. All of the Kryptonite is out of your system, but there are still aftereffects.”

It grated - Clark wasn’t used to being helpless - but Batman was right. He had been working on something that would help him recover faster in cases like this, but it was all in the Fortress of Solitude and, to keep out intruders, he had made the key so heavy that he was the only one who could lift it, not considering that sometimes even he might not be able to.

He was lucky that Batman had been there - and apparently had the facilities for dealing with Kryptonite poisoning, because of course he did. And trusted Clark enough to bring him here. That part was still hard to believe, but maybe he’d been a little too fast to judge. Batman did care about him, in his way, and that was enough to fuel a dangerous hope that whatever they’d had wasn’t so far gone after all.

Clark braced himself and took a chance. “It feels like I must have been here before.”

That got Batman’s attention. He wheeled around in his chair, nearly knocking Clark off his feet - his reflexes still sluggish from the Kryptonite poisoning - but he managed to stay upright.

“Not recently,” Clark clarified, “before- in another reality. It all seems absurd when I think about it, but I still remember it sometimes.”

Batman looked distinctly like he wasn’t going to reply, he wasn’t looking at Clark, his thoughts apparently elsewhere entirely, probably still busy trying to figure out what to do about Luthor. But then he said, his voice low, but not too low for Clark to hear, “So do I.”

“You do?” Clark asked, surprised.

Batman gave him a pointed look.

“I don’t remember everything, it’s all a little hazy. It doesn’t quite feel real, more like a dream, but we know there have been other realities, there’s no denying that they are really memories, is there?”

“No.”

Batman wasn’t making this easy, but the important things rarely were. Clark took a breath and dove back in. “I get the feeling we were closer back then - in that other reality. I wouldn’t have guessed that you were Bruce Wayne, but somehow it feels right, like I must have known before.”

Batman nodded. “I should have realized you’re Clark Kent from the start.”

“I don’t know how I’ve managed to hide it from anyone, even with the Kryptonian technology,” Clark admitted.

That elicited a thin smile and Clark grinned back.

Bolstered, Clark continued, “Anyway, Bat-” and he faltered.

Batman hesitated. And then, to Clark’s surprise, he pulled off his cowl, letting it hang back like the hood of a jacket, revealing a man, not as immediately recognizable as the famed Bruce Wayne as Clark had expected; more grizzled and worn, but still somehow familiar in the sardonic arch of his eyebrows and his piercing blue gaze. He was handsome, in a rough sort of way, with sharp features and dark hair in wild disarray.

Firmly, he said, “You can call me Bruce.”

“Bruce,” Clark corrected himself, testing out the still unfamiliar name as he reoriented himself to the familiar-unfamiliar man in front of him. He took a moment to regather the threads of what he had been saying. “I was just thinking we ought to do something together sometime, if you want to - other than saving the world, I mean - maybe go for dinner like ordinary friends, get to know each other again.”

“Friends?” Batman- Bruce replied skeptically.

Clark shrugged, unsure how Bruce meant it, so he hedged, “Something like that. What do you say?”

To Clark’s surprise, Bruce pressed a button on the console and in less time than it ought to have taken, a prim and proper butler appeared from behind - because Batman was Bruce Wayne, after all.

“Yes, Master Bruce?” the butler said, which in that moment Clark could only imagine was the most awkward form of address possible.

Bruce, however, took it in stride, even with perhaps less than his usual gruffness. “Set the table for two for dinner, Alfred - we have a guest.”

“I see that, though I must inform you, Sir, that dinner time is long past.” At least his butler had a personality. And somehow Alfred was familiar too, just like everything else about Batman.

Bruce just waved it off. “Call it breakfast then,” he said with a glance at Clark that betrayed the slightest smile.

Clark watched him in amazement. This was a new side of Batman - if Clark hadn’t known better, he would almost have said that Bruce seemed relaxed, like there was a person underneath his rough exterior.

“Very good, Sir.” And before he left, Alfred added, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Master Kent.”

“Just Clark,” he insisted, but Alfred was already on his way out of the cave, back into the house above. Only belatedly did Clark realize that somehow Alfred knew his identity. “So much for secret identities.”

Bruce almost seemed sympathetic. “No secret is safe from Alfred.”

“Apparently.”

“It’s part of the job.”

It was Clark’s turn to look skeptical.

Bruce met his gaze as though it were a challenge, and this time it looked like neither of them was about to back down. If Clark had told himself the day before that he’d be having dinner - or breakfast - with Batman, he would have laughed, but apparently it was a date, and one he was looking forward to.


End file.
